TRANSLATED ARTICLES 126 Claudia Torán · Eme nº 5 · 2017 ISSN 2253-6337

RECORDS, ART AND RACISM: INTRODUCTION TO THE PROTEST GRAPHICS OF THE 70S FREE JAZZ Claudia Torán Currently developing her PhD, she has a degree in Fine Arts

This article is a preliminary research proposing the beginning we must start with the first jazz re- us to take a trip through racism and art in the cord covers. It is in this context that the music historical context of New York Free Jazz; ana- industry of the United States dealt with the ra- lysing it will allow us to understand the defin- cial problem with precaution in their promotion ing characteristics and activist goals of the art methods and commercial tactics, in which the 1 shown in the record covers. designer played a main role.1 Alex Steinweiss and Neil Fujita, became art After a brief historical introduction, dealing There were endless confrontations in the ar- directors of Columbia Records in 1939 and with the topic of racism and jazz music, the au- tistic and musical fields and it is paradoxical that 1954 respectively and tried to enhance the thor focuses her interest on a selection of record those white people who consumed black music, graphic personality of the record company were at the same time promoting racism and seg- applying their own artistic work on the covers and artists, with the purpose of starting 2 record covers and counting with other in- an analysis of the graphics and iconography regation laws. dependent illustrators, designers and pho- that defined the music industry of that period. We find a dramatic example of this is the story tographers, such as William Claxton, Burt Music and art is an excuse to study the racial of Bessie Smith, acclaimed diva of blues in the 20s Goldblatt, Richard Avedon, Ben Shahn or Tom Allen; with whom they developed the problem that affected artists. We will see how and 30s, who after an automobile accident bled daring proposals that generated new artis- their works evolved in a social-cultural context to death due to racial discrimination in hospitals tic trends and increased the sale of records of segregation and strife for change, experi- where they would not assist coloured people. up to 800%. Many musicians and artists refused to remain Those proposals, in which the designer, had menting with liberating their artistic process in a fundamental role contributed to the pro- favour of social commitment. impassive before such discriminating happenings, gressive functional evolution of the product, such as the trumpet player Miles Davis, who dared doubling its value with its artistic appeal. Key words: to state, “I do not play music for whites,” turning his This happened because the consumer no longer bought just a musical work; they also Racism, Harlem renaissance, free jazz, graphic back on his own audience, symbolically and literally, had the incentive of enjoying an artwork as design, record cover. using music as a tool for expression and liberation.3 well, which was the container of a musical Numberless examples will remain forever pic- recording. A new democratisation of art, just Throughout history, racism and music have been tured in the graphic design of the times, as well as as it had already occurred with posters. 2 two concepts closely linked in jazz and blues with in advertising and editorial images. Between 1876 and 1965 the Jim Crow Laws musicians who suffered discrimination from the As an example, we approach the case of the were passed in the United States. Under times of slavery up to the hip hop of the 70’s, and American magazine Down Beat, the jazz bible of the moto “separated but equal” these laws promoted racial segregation in public fa- the political rap of the 90’s or even current music. the 30s, that repeatedly excluded African Ameri- cilities. They perpetuated many economic, Did racial marginalisation have an impact on can musicians. educational and social disadvantages the graphics linked to the music? What mark did It seems surprising to look at this publication cat- for African Americans and other ethnic it leave on subsequent art? How did the aesthetic alogue and verify how the people pictured on their groups which were not the whites residents of the United States. development begin to be constructed? covers were white, when the African American musi- 3 With this article I mean to research racial dis- cians were the unmistakable stars in the hit parades. In 1971 Miles Davis declared to Jazz Maga- crimination and the civil rights conflict of Af- Returning to the music market, it is well known zine “Not a day passes in which this dis- crimination does not make me furious, but rican Americans through the record covers, an that the packaging, the illustration, took on a fun- since I cannot be forever enraged, I use my approach placed in the historical context going damental role, creating imagery that converted music to give vent to my rage.” from the 40s to the early 80s. Rewinding towards that time in the Golden Age of record covers, from Claudia Torán · http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/eme.2017.6918 127 TRANSLATED ARTICLES

the moment Alex Steinweiss reinvented it in 19404. pocrisy that led him to use his art as a protest cry Thus, I consider it interesting to make a balance of before that situation. that conjunction created between illustration and We find in Basquiat’s expressive strokes and the race problem that shook the United States in doodles many references to African American the decade of the 1940s. It is curious because it was, music; Stardust (1983) or Now is the Time are during those years, paradigm by excellence of the examples of this interest in music and the social racial problem, one of the periods in the history of commitment that it reflected in many of his mu- modern art in which we find more illustrations of rals throughout his career. coloured people. The artist, who founded a musical group, Gray, The truth is that African American musicians in which he played the clarinet and synthesizer, were protagonists, and it was inevitable not to use also found on the record cover a showcase for ideo- them as models when representing their music. logical expression, using symbolism that is akin to The case is that jazz would become the image of cave-art to evidence many subliminal messages, or this protest and with it its interpreters who, as we not so subliminal, with which to contribute with his 5 4 can verify, gained visibility through illustration. creativity to that fight for change. During the 20s and 30s records were sold We have an extensive portrait archive, with art- Continuing the quest for those aesthetics that in paper or cardboard covers with a hole in ists of the height of David Stone Martin, Ben Shahn meant to give visibility to the African American so- the center to show the record label with the or Andy Warhol who, in a more or less evident ciety, special mention should be made of the work of name of the artist stamped on it. It was in 1940 when Alex Steinweiss, art manner, used the record covers as a canvas to deal Matias Klarweinm, an artist that contributed exten- director of Columbia Records, decided with the topic of social integration. sively with his collages in the North American re- to change the course of those record cov- In the beginning those representations were cord industry and in the racial activism adhered to it. ers, designing the cover of Smash Song Hits of Richard Rodgers and the Imperial more documental than protest, but became more We verify how protest record covers originated Orchestra. A project carried out through radical in the 60s. The activist movement known as from surrealism and psychedelia. A “fantastic real- photography and graphic treatment of the Harlem Renaissance began in the New York bor- ism”, just as the author himself defined it. image, with which he achieved a composi- ough of Harlem, where artists, musicians and writ- His works are idyllic scenes and impossible spac- tion that would break all previous moulds and stereotypes. The design supposed the 6 ers lived and worked. es where figures floated immersed in symbolism beginning of a new art form and a new way It was a period of political and social convul- and where social integration is evident through the of selling records that changed the course sions. Rosa Parks, the first lady of civil rights, pro- record covers such as Bitches Brew (1970), Live-Evil of the musical industry forever, generating an infinite number of graphic possibilities voked protests headed by Martin Luther King and (1971) of White Lightnin' (1975). that enriched the identity of the product. musicians and artists like Nina Simone proclaimed We see bodies together and hands linked. It was 5 that the time had come to take to action.7 in the 70s and in the United States there was still a Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Billie Holi- In such a context, local collectives of African lot to do, but what is true is that in those records of day, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Johnny Hodges, Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, American art, such as OBAC (Organization of Miles Davis and other free jazz musicians extend- Jimmy Rushing, Illinois Jacquet, Oscar Black American Culture) or AfriCOBRA (African ed through society with propagandistic images on Peterson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) began to work their covers. Images that were giving visibility to Bud Powell, Anita O’Day, Sarah Vaughan, Ben Webster, Meade Lux Lewis o Marie experimenting and improvising. In South Chicago, the African American population, going back to its Lou Williams were some of the musicians these characteristics defined experimental jazz and ethnic tradition, giving value to it past and wager- of African American origin who were the graphics that accompanied it. Free jazz was ing on its promising future. portrayed on the covers of their records considered a vanguard, and under slogans like In that same mystic and surrealistic line, we find through illustration. 6 Great Black Music or Ancient to Future, its values the work of Mario Convertino, an Italian illustrator. Harlem Renaissance (1918 to 1937) was a were transferred to plastic arts in the quest of a From the mid 60s he centred on designing record movement that meant the rebirth of the Af- “black aesthetic” and “Afro aesthetic”, with which covers leaving us pieces such as Holding Together, rican American culture, which was evident mainly in the creative arts and become, in to make the African American population visible done for Oliver Lake in 1976. Muhal Richard Abra- turn, the most influential movement in the and defend its place in society. hams also recurred to pictorial proposals, a disturb- history of African American literature. But, which were its defining features? Where did ing space in which the arranged elements levitat- Harlem Renaissance found its means of they come from? Where were they going? Can we ed, invoking a new concept of union and ethnics expression in literature, music, theatre and visual arts and was considered an artistic speak of a predominant style? through his figures and patterns. vanguard. Also it must be pointed out that It is interesting to verify how the aesthetics A union we also see reflected in the collection although its development was not limited were defined from several creative routes, differ- Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions to the Harlem district of New York, that was where the greatest concentration of artists ent artistic influences, ranging from Egyptology, (1976), in which African American musicians are and musicians was, and it served as its sym- cosmogony or magic realism characteristic of shown in a poetic oasis in the middle of a great city. bolic capital of the cultural rebirth. science fiction, defined artistic sub-vanguards All formed part of America and they expressed in 7 such as Afrofuturism whose main representative this way their space as free and pacific coexistence. Nina Simone wrote Mississippi Goddam in 1964; a song inspired on the death of the ac- in graphics was the prolific New York artist Jean- Another relevant aspect was the reiteration of tivist Medgar Ever, and the murder of four Michel Basquiat. images reflected, in double or triple portraits and girls in the bombing of the Baptist church Basquiat sold out his first exhibition in New visual parallelisms such as it occurs, for instance, in of Birmingham, Alabama (1963). The song in which the artists forcefully denounces York in 1981, however he could not take a taxi in Soweto designed by Ron Warwell in 1978 or in the racism, became one of the hymns of the its streets; and this is just an example of the hy- record Black Lightnin' edited by The Sun in 1976. movement for civil rights. TRANSLATED ARTICLES 128 Claudia Torán · Eme nº 5 · 2017 ISSN 2253-6337

Also for the pianist Dollar Brand it was the record own declaration, through symbolic imagery that cover made in 1965 by Marte Rollings, a German is worthy of deciphering. painter and sculptor acclaimed by the jazz circles Once more art served to break barriers, to inte- for her covers for the Fontana seal. grate and make people sensitive, and announce As we see it, also in Nefertiti, the Beautiful One the change through a product whose industry was Has Come. Touching or Communication, the artist booming. used portrait as a space resource to look into the The record cover was an ideal media of expression identity of the jazz musician and to refer to the to integrate and transmit messages to society, those de- concept of interracial union. Within this symbol- signs became authentic banners for social integration. ism there are indications of the Egyptian tradition and the masks of African origin, and it is that both resources are frequently used in those covers that illustrate the music of change. The exaltation and glorification of the musician from the circular spotlights or auras was often underlined Bibliography: by the use of Egyptian elements such as inscriptions, Beckwith NAOMI; Roelstraete DIETER: The Freedom Principle. crowns or pharaonic attire. Examples of this were the Experiments in Art and Music 1965 to Now, Chicago, Museum of covers that depicted the music of Sun Ra, key exponent Contemporary Art of Chicago, 2015. Carlés PHILLIPE; Comollí JEAN LOUIS: Free jazz, black power, of the vanguard values of experimental jazz. Barcelona, Anagrama, 1973. Another common element was the use of African C. Driskell DAVID; D. Willis RYAN; D. Levering LEWIS: Harlem masks, that groups such as Art Ensemble of Chi- Renaissance: Art of Black America, New York, The Studio Mu- cago took as main elements of their aesthetics. seum in Harlem, 1987. Groos ULRIKE; Bekstette SVEN; Müller MARKUS: I Got Rhythm. Muhal Richard Abrams, mentioned above, also Art and Jazz Since 1920, Stuttgart, Prestel Ltd, 2015. resorted to the use of masks in his late album Song H. FALK, Peter, M. LEWIS, Audrey and ROESSLER, Veronika. for All (1997) the same as Jimmy Giuffre withRiver Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975: 400 years of Artists in America. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999. Chant (1975) or the collection Dancing in Your Head Hoban PHOEBE: Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, New York, Pen- that in 1977 Ornette Coleman’s free jazz presented. guin, 2004. Finally we verify as a return to the roots, the sur- J. Powell RICHARD; M.Mecklenburg VIRGINIA: African Ameri- real mysticism and the ethnic iconography were can Art. Harlem Renaissance Civil Rights Era and Beyond, Wash- ington D.C., Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2012. some of the resources the artists used to create new Lackritz Gray MARY: A Guide to Chicago’s Murals, Chicago, The spaces of representation and activism. University of Chicago Press, 2001. The record industry which had already transformed Leggio JAMES: Music and Modern Art, New York, Routledge, 2002. M. Cassidy DONNA: Jazz Representations and early twentieth- itself at the end of the 1930s using its packaging as a century American Culture: Race, Ethnicity and National Identity, space for artistic creation, gave a new, and much need- New York, Oxford University Press, 1988. ed, turn through the music and through the image. Morse JOHN: Ben Shahn, New York, Praeger Publishers Inc, 1972. Following the same path as the musical evolu- N. Abrams HARRY: Harlem in the Jazz Age, New York, The New York Times, 8 February 1987. tion, graphic design became more radical in its Prescott KENNETH: The Complete Graphic Works of Ben Shahn. manner of protesting. Clear messages and poetic New York: Quadrangle, 1973. colorist images on the covers which aesthetics and Reagan KEVIN; Steinweiss ALEX; Steven HELLER: Alex Stein- weiss. The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover, Taschen, 2011. message did not pretend to be indifferent to a soci- West DOROTHY: Los Angeles Times Interview: A voice of Harlem ety that deserved to be changed. Renaissance Talks of Past But Values the “Now”, Los Angeles, Los We find that the artist’s purpose would be to Angeles Times. 1 January 1995. transmit, with the image, not only the music con- Catalogue of the exhibition Jazz Gráfico. Diseño y fotografía en el disco de Jazz. 1940-1968. IVAM, Valencia, 1999. tained in the record, but also their own ideologi- cal message, a positive and hopeful message with which society would achieve equality and intercul- tural respect in that historic frame so effervescent for music and plastic artists. The role of the art directors, designers and il- Claudia Torán has a degree in Fine Arts and is cu- lustrators that, years before, documented the mu- rrently researching her PhD. She has specialised sic through representation of bustling typography through a Master Course in Design and Illustra- and instruments, portrait of interpreters or musical tion in the Universitat Politécnica de València scenes, placed itself at the service of ethics and pol- (Polytechnical University of Valencia). itics, taking the reins of social commitment. She works for different studios as a freelance gra- The artist’s ideology was voiced in silence as phic artist and means to devote her career to illus- a premise of the music that the record itself of- tration and research on it in the field of music. fered, and was captured in a more direct an evi- dent manner, using the cover of the record as its